Estrogen-related genes and the fat mass and obesity-associated (FTO) gene play a critical role in estrogen metabolism, and those polymorphisms are associated with a poor prognosis in breast cancer. However, little is known about the association between these polymorphisms and the efficacy of anastrozole. The aim was to investigate the impact of the genetic polymorphisms, CYP19A1, 17-β-HSD-1 and FTO, on the response to anastrozole in metastatic breast carcinoma (MBC) and to evaluate the impact of those polymorphisms on various clinicopathologic features. Two-hundred seventy-two women with hormone receptor-positive MBC treated with anastrozole were identified retrospectively. DNA was extracted from peripheral blood and genotyped for five variants in three candidate genes. Time to progression was improved in patients carrying the variant alleles of rs4646 when compared to patients with the wild-type allele (16.40 months versus 13.52 months; p = 0.049). The rs4646 variant alleles were significantly associated with longer overall survival (37.3 months versus 31.6 months; p = 0.007). This relationship was not observed with the rs10046, rs2830, rs9926298 and rs9939609 polymorphisms. The findings of this study indicate that rs4646 polymorphism in the CYP19A1 gene may serve as a prognostic maker of the response to anastrozole in patients with MBC who are treated with anastrozole.

Background: Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a new treatment for esophageal cancer which has been shown to be effective in the elimination of tumor. However, PDT could induce the activation of nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) in many photosensitizers based PDT, which plays a negative role in PDT. In addition, our previous results have shown that dihydroartemisinin (DHA), which was the most potent one of artemisinin derivatives, has anticancer activity in esophageal cancer cells. Methods: Cell viability was determined by MTT analysis, and apoptosis was evaluated by flow cytometry. Nuclear extract was obtained for determining NF-κB DNA-binding activity, while total protein extract obtained for downstream gene expression by western blot. Results: We demonstrated DHA enhanced PDT-induced growth inhibition and apoptosis in both human esophageal cancer cell lines Eca109 and Ec9706 in vitro. The mechanism was at least partially due to DHA deactivated PDT-induced NF-κB activation, so as to decrease tremendously the expression of its target gene Bcl-2. Conclusion: Our results demonstrate that DHA augments PDT-induced growth inhibition and apoptosis in esophageal cancer cells, and that inactivation of NF-κB activity is a potential mechanism by which DHA sensitizes esophageal cancer cells to PDT-induced growth inhibition and apoptosis.

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High-strength and micropore lightweight bauxite aggregate was fabricated by low grade raw bauxite powder, aluminium hydroxide powder and organic polymer (OP). OP was used as consolidator, binder and pore former and aluminium hydroxide was used as pore former. The influence of OP and aluminium hydroxide content on the property of the samples was studied. The phase composition and the microstructure of the sintered samples were characterized by XRD, SEM and the pore size distribution was measured by mercury porosimety. The results demonstrate that the bulk density of the samples decreases linearly and the apparent porosity of the samples increases gradually with the addition of OP. The lowest density reached 1.13g/cm3when adding 35% OP and 10% Al(OH)3. The average pore size is around 5μm, and increases with the addition of OP increased. The XRD showed the main phase of the sample is mullite and some little amount of corundum.

The periclase-hercynite brick performance after different re-firing cycles was researched under different atmosphere. The results are shown that under the oxidizing atmosphere, the brick after re-firing would lead to the mutual diffusion of iron ions in both magnesium substrate and hercynite particles, which would further lead to ring cracks around hercynite. After the brick was re-firing at CO atmosphere, the mutual diffusion of magnesium and iron ions was even more severe, which formed magnitude of magnesia-hercynites and magnalium spinels. SEM results are shown that the porous structure around the hercynite could damage more severe.